My husband paid a visit to our local bank the other day to deposit a plastic bag filled with coins. This is something he does every few months. Only this time, he was informed that he would now be charged $5 for this transaction. Seems kind of funny that you have to pay your bank to take your money. Especially since they have a coin machine that processes the entire transaction.

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The tagline for our bank is “Partners in Our Hometown.” I guess their definition of partnership includes a piece of our account. I’m thinking it may be time to take all of my accounts to a place where there is a bit less partnership and a bit more customer service.

I understand the need to have rules. Without them, we would live in chaos. However, there are many rules, such as the one I just described, that clearly do not make sense. Look closely at your own organizations. Do you have rules simply to have rules? Are your employees empowered to break the rules, when the rules get in the way of servicing your customers? Or are you being penny wise and pound foolish?